The end of the year typically sees a "migration of investment
professionals to head out to the broker-dealer hunting grounds,"
writes Gary Martino of online-broker dealer MoneyBlock. But
advisors should also ask themselves and their recruiters key
questions before jumping ship. Martino identifies ten key
questions.

1. "Does the technology offering match what my business and my
clients currently need and may want?" 2. "What are the
broker-dealer’s primary revenue sources?" 3. "Does the firm allow
me to use the investments I want to use now and as my clients’
needs evolve?" 4. "Do you have a complete fee schedule for me and
my clients?" 5. "How flexible is the advisory fee and/or
commission schedule?" 6. "Is it really my business if I decide to
leave?" 7. "What is the B-D doing to save me time, so I can grow
and manage my book?" 8. "Does my input not only reach the
broker-dealer’s decision makers, but does it have an impact?" 9.
"Can you walk me through your account opening and management
process?" 10. "How does your compliance and supervisory processes
work?"

The next leg of the Great Rotation — the shift out of bonds and
into equities is about to begin writes BofA Merrill Lynch head of
U.S. equity strategy Savita Subramanian. Until now the rotation
has been out of bonds but into "bond proxies." While there will
be continued inflows into taper-proof yield, she writes that the
next leg will be "Quintile 2."

"As managers move down the yield spectrum, they are likely to
stumble upon what may be one of the market’s best-kept secrets:
Quintile 2 by dividend yield of the Russell 1000. These stocks
still offer competitive yields, but unlike Quintile 1, enable
investors to avoid yield traps and invest in stocks that
generally have lower payout ratios, more globally-diversified
revenues, less rate sensitivity, and better/more stable growth.
Quintile 2 has offered the highest average return and the lowest
downside risk over time. Additionally, many of these stocks are
household names that even the most gun-shy equity investor may
feel comfortable owning."

Investors should take the time to realize if Roth conversions are
right for the Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs). But, if for
instance investors go forward with the conversion and realize it
wasn't right for them they could still opt out, according to
Mario Bruno at Vanguard.

"Well there is some flexibility with Roth conversions, and this
doesn’t happen very often with the IRS, they do allow a do over.
So you can, if you do—if you realize you don’t want to do it or
maybe you don’t have the income to pay the taxes, you can undo
the conversion by re-characterizing it back to a traditional IRA.
So you do have some flexibility. There are some time constraints
to do that but you have until, typically if you file a timely tax
return or file for an extension, you have until October of the
following year to actually do the re-characterization. So there’s
some flexibility there for a do-over. It can get a little
complicated in terms of deciphering what the earnings might be
and what not, if you’re doing a partial re-characterization. So
you might need a little bit of help, but absolutely you can undo
it if that’s something that you feel you need to."

The average age of advisors is 57 and Mark Tibergien, chief
executive of Pershing Advisor Solutions thinks it is important
for those in the industry to think of the next generation of
advisors and what they want. Speaking at the InvestmentNews Best
Practices Workshop Tibergien said it isn't just compensation that
counts.

Jeff Benjamin at Investment News reports: "Mr. Tibergien
emphasized what he called the 'hygiene factors,' including
factors such as working conditions, commute and job security as
considerations on which candidates often focus. 'I don't believe
you can motivate people, but I do believe you can de-motivate
people. As the saying goes, companies hire people and managers
lose people.'

"Investor demand for 'value' has been pervasive," writes Goldman
Sachs David Kostin. "Low valuation stocks have outperformed
higher valuation peers by 12% in 2013 on a sector-neutral and
equal weight basis." Because of this S&P 500 P/E multiples
are at their tightest in 25 years. "With valuation clustered
together we believe there are attractive relative value
opportunities where companies with different fundamentals are
trading at very similar valuation levels."